


Lost in the Aisles

by a_xmasmurder



Series: Inside the Mind of a Bomb Tech [1]
Category: The Hurt Locker (2008)
Genre: Adjustment Periods, Cereal, Frustration, Gen, Not-quite PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2014-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:21:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1676258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergeant First Class William James attempts shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in the Aisles

**Author's Note:**

> The Hurt Locker.
> 
> This one gives me feels. This is likely one of many little things that will be added to as time passes and I parse exactly how that movie fucked my head up.

 

“Cereal. Great.”

James cranks his head around, looking for some sign, some fucking clue, where the cereal is. _Cereal. Can’t be that hard. Cereal._ He stares from one end of the store to the other. _Cereal_.

“Where’s the -”

She’s already gone, her full cart and his little boy off to the checkouts, and he’s left on his own to figure out where the fuck the cereal is. He rolls his eyes and huffs in defeat and no small amount of irritation. He decides just to wander until he finds cereal. Thankfully, it isn’t hard, it’s only four aisles down - _and why didn’t we get this before moving on to milk? It’s literally on the way to the milk. Priorities and plans. Always have a plan_ -

James rolls the cart with his soda down to the middle since there's no one else in the aisle and faces the cereal, of which there seems to be an entire fucking wall of. _What the hell?_ He could swear that there weren’t this many brands before his first tour. _Why are there twenty kinds of Cheerios? Seriously, who comes up with these hare-brained names? And chocolate everything. All the chocolate. Who needs this many damned cereals?_ He stares in awe, first down one side of the aisle, then up the other side. “Jesus.” He really needs a cigarette because this shit is surreal. How the hell was he supposed to pick? What did the kid eat? What did Connie like? He blinks up at the garish boxes and squints to see the ones on the top shelf. “Adult cereal? The fuck? What’s wrong with Trix?” He feels himself slipping, feels the itch under his skin. He’s getting frustrated real damned quick, nothin’ he can do about it. They’d warned him, when he walked into the therapist’s office, didn’t they? That it would be an adjustment. He’d need time. Things have changed.

_Damn right things have changed._ _But did it have to be the simple things? Like what the hell happened to shopping? Things are more expensive, and you get less of it. And there’s so many things now, who needs all this shit?_ He squeezes his hands into fists, feeling them creak. _What’s the point? It’s food. Why do you need twenty kinds of Cheerios and chocolate shavings in with fruit and yogurt bits? Be happy with what you’ve got, man. And water. Water! Used to be, you get it out of a tap, and if you wanted flavor you mix in Kool-aid powder. Now there’s berry flavored diet water. Diet water. Who does that? Who needs diet water? People on diets. It’s fucking water! Get it out of a tap, don’t add shit to it, it’s water. No calories. No additives._ He winces. _Well, there’s additives, but that’s because of the shit factories dump into the water. And the government controls what we put in our water, our bellies._ He shakes his head. _But what does it matter? It doesn’t. People are dying in places because there’s no water, no food, and here I am, trying to decide what fucking pathetic brand of cereal I need to get my fucking question mark wife because she asked me to and trying not to lose my god damned fucking_ mind _over it!_

He breathes in deeply through his nose and out slowly through gritted teeth. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters because he’s stuck here now and there’s nothing for it. He swipes a box of something off the shelf and into the cart with more force than he needed. It doesn’t matter. He’s stuck doing shopping because that’s what normal people do and that’s what he is now. Normal. Something brushes his shoulder as he pushes the cart down to what he really hopes is the damned exit and he slaps it out of the way, really wishing it would slap back and then he can fucking knock someone out.

****  
  



End file.
